"In the end, seeing me determined, two chiefs said that they would go with me. With these and my own Indians and interpreters, I pursued my journey until within sight of Cibola, which is situated on an plain at the skirt of a round hill. It has the appearance of a very beautiful town, the best that I have seen in these parts. The houses are of the fashion that the Indians had described to me, all of stone with their stories and terraces, as it appeared to me from a hill where I was able to view it.
The city is bigger than the city of Mexico. At times I was tempted to go to it, because I knew that I ventured only life, which I had offered to God the day I commenced the journey. At the end if feared [to do so], considering my danger and that, if I died, I would not be able to make a report of this country, which to me appears the greatest and best of the discoveries. Saying to the chiefs who had come with me how beautiful Cíbola appeared to me, they told me that it was the least of the seven cities, and that Totonteac is much bigger and better than all the seven, and that it has so many houses and people that it has no end.
[...It appeared appropriate to me to call that country the New Kingdom of St. Francis; and there, with the aid of the Indians, I made a great heap of stones, and on top of it I placed a cross.... I announced that I erected the cross in the name of Don Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain, for the Emperor, our lord...,which possession I proclaimed that I took of all the seven cities and of the kingdoms of Totonteac and of Acus and Marata, and that I went not to them in order to return to give account of what I did and saw.]"